FAMSF Blog

FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums' permanent collections. This week, we feature an iconic photograph by renowned Bay Area photographer Imogen Cunningham. Magnolia Blossom is currently not on view, so take some time to stop and smell the flowers (virtually)!

"Will Work for Art" takes you behind the scenes to meet the people who make the Fine Arts Museums work. This week we introduce you to the fabulous Christopher Lentz, Manager of Visitor Services and Volunteer Programs. Originally from Nashville (by way of Honolulu), Christopher has been with the Museums for over two years.

In 1980, H. McCoy Jones announced that he and his wife, Caroline, would donate his entire private collection of more than six hundred Central Asian carpets to the Fine Arts Museums. Two years later, Cathryn M. Cootner was appointed as the de Young’s first textile curator (her tenure as curator-in-charge would run through 1995). Cootner’s robust acquisition and exhibition program transformed the Museums into a well-respected repository for high quality textiles and oriental rugs. Chief among these was a watershed exhibition of Caroline McCoy-Jones’s unsurpassed collection of Anatolian kilims in 1991. We took a moment to sit down with Cathy Cootner to reflect on the McCoy Joneses and their spectacular kilims twenty years later.

While the museum is closed to the public most Mondays, it welcomes hundreds of students and teachers to visit special exhibitions, such as Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris. You may nostalgically remember this kind of field trip as day off from the classroom, but the education department’s school programs team makes the field trip a “day on” for young learners.

FRAME|WORK is a weekly blog series that highlights an artwork in the Museums' permanent collections. This week, we feature a unique sculpture that unites art and science. Cornelia Parker's striking Anti-Mass is currently on view at the de Young.

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated every September 15 through October 15. California's identity is deeply rooted in Hispanic culture, and its influence can be felt throughout the streets of San Francisco and throughout the Fine Arts Museums. Here at the de Young, the Art of the Americas and the American Art department boast significant artworks by artists of Hispanic descent . We hope that you enjoy this self-guided tour of the artwork created by this incredibly rich and diverse cultural group.

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FAMSF Blog

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Blog provides the latest news and views on exhibitions, programs, collections, and behind-the-scenes happenings at San Francisco's de Young and Legion of Honor museums.